Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="OttoinGrotto, post: 783940, member: 297"] To his credit, Marrone brought the program back to respectability. We had 2 seasons with pretty good records, and the bowl wins are a nice plus. He helped some kids get to the pros. I feel our program was relatively clean under his watch (yeah, we had some blemishes, but overall nothing too scandalous). He took a really sad program and moved it forward, and had a handful of signature wins. He deserves credit for all of that. I can understand people wanting more though. He was a .500 coach - that's fact. He did have a losing conference record - that's fact. We watched some really, really ugly football for three of his four years - that's fact. Two things stick in my craw - the big one is that people were lining up to anoint the guy to be the next great coach before he accomplished anything, and that really rubbed me the wrong way. Comparisons to becoming the football version of Boeheim (who is a true original and basically an institutional treasure), how Marrone sold the dream job thing, the legend of the binder, the mythology surrounding his recruiting (Marrone's recruits are cut from a higher moral cloth/his 2 stars are better than other people's 4 stars/no really, these guys aren't B-listers, etc.), the infatuation fans had with believing that you could white knuckle your way to every win "the Marrone way" because that's how he likes it, the supposed moral superiority bestowed on Marrone for being an alum... these are all things I read about on this board that had absolutely nothing to do with achievements, and aren't even anything Marrone did on his own for the most part. I didn't like the deification, as Crusty nailed it. It made it impossible to objectively evaluate him. The other thing that bothered me - if you're going to sell fans hard on the job being a dream, you've got to see it through. He didn't see it through. I'm actually ecstatic for Coach Marrone, man to man. He's in the NFL. That's the right place for him. He must be much happier these days. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?